


She Wakes

by zjofierose



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Compliant Battle of Five Armies, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Hurt, Timeline What Timeline, ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-02
Updated: 2015-01-02
Packaged: 2018-03-04 22:25:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3093476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zjofierose/pseuds/zjofierose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She wakes to find him warm beside her. She wakes to find him dead. She wakes. She wakes. She wakes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	She Wakes

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry, I guess I got bit by the Kiliel bug. 
> 
> SPOILERS LIKE WHOA.

She wakes in the night gasping, clutching instinctively at his solid form beside her and bursting into silent tears as she runs her hands over his torso, checking for the gaping wound that's not there. The touch of her urgent fingers wakes him, and he sits up groggily, bringing his rough, warm, hands to her face.

“Hush, _amrâlimê_ , it's only a dream.” He pulls her back down beside him and rolls over, managing to wrap his smaller body entirely around her long limbs, pulling her back in close to his firm chest as she shudders soundlessly. He's already drifting back off, burying his face in the back of her neck next to her braid as he interlaces their fingers and holds her close. He is warm, and real, and whole.

It takes her a long time to fall back asleep.

–

She opens her eyes on the cold rock face just in time to see the enormous orc seize him in his hands, to see him turn his face to her as she flings herself to her feet too late. The killing blow comes inevitably, and she feels it as if it is in her own guts, doubling over and screaming with a voice she did not know she possessed as he gasps his last gurgling breaths.

She can't begin to process the feeling within herself, can't even touch the edges of its limitless shock, but she thinks that maybe the thing that hurts the most is seeing the pain in his face. It is sudden, but not swift, no simple beheading or axe through the skull. He is _hurting_ as he is dying, and all he can do is look at her, and she thinks she would not so much have minded dying herself, but watching him do it is more than she can be expected to bear.

–

She wakes again, head snapping up from where she's dozed off in a chair, face rising to take in the glow of the setting sun through the opened door. She doesn't recognize where she is, can't recall how she got here, can only remember that he is dead, he is gone, that she is alone. Her hands begin to shake, her breath rattling in her chest.

A sudden shadow appears in the doorway, blotting out the bloody rays of sunset. His face is jolly, a wide grin wreathing his features, a twist of firewood upon his back. He takes one look at her, drops the wood and strides forward into her reaching, clutching hands, letting her pull him bodily onto her lap and bury her face in his shoulder. He strokes her hair as she shakes, murmuring gentle nonsense as she rocks them back and forth.

“Another dream?” He rubs his cheek across her head, and she remembers now what the smell of him is, scent of metal and dark earth, warm skin and hide. “You haven't had one of those in years.”

She slides a hand under the hem of his shirt without asking, rubs her hand over his chest and belly, fingers pressing through his hair to the wound that never has been. He lets her, skin hot to her cool touch, voice calm and reassuring in her ear.

–

She opens her eyes to Thranduil being compassionate, and that is enough to convince her that this is real, that he is dead and gone. The elf-king's face is drawn and haggard, and she remembers that he has never loved again, and knows it, deep in her soul, that neither, now, will she. Such a waste, she thinks, that all this love she has within her is already dead before it lived, that all this life that has now bled out from his cooling body is empty with nothing left but a lump of stone.

She kisses him, once, and he is still warm, but there is no pressure, no response, and it's then that she truly understands that he is gone.

–

She wakes alone and cold, and huddles into her blankets, rocking herself back and forth, back and forth as she chokes on air. The door opens and he enters, striding quickly over to dive back under the covers next to her.

“Sorry love, I'd only gone to the privy, I didn't mean to wake you.” His face is lined, his hair streaked with grey as he leans down to smile at her in the dim light. “Here now, what's wrong?”

She shakes her head and wraps her limbs around him, running her hands over his wide shoulders, his growing belly. He's older than she's ever seen him, two hundred years at a guess, and her stomach clenches with the knowledge that his life is drawing slowly to a close.

“Hey.” He takes her hand and presses it to his chest, just below his heart. “I'm here, I'm safe. We're safe. The war was long ago, and you saved me, don't you remember?” He chuckles. “I nearly had it, but you saved me, just like you always have.” He smiles, and leans up to press their foreheads together, hand still large and warm on hers. “You saved me.”

–

She wakes to Bilbo's face, chilled and drawn, and the news he brings that Thorin and both his nephews are dead, and she screams again to the empty sky as they collect the bodies and load them onto a cart for transportation to a burial site. Their party is somber, but already there are plans for the future, and she wants to shake them, to slap them, to tell them that the world has stopped, has ended, and nothing can move forward without him.

–

She wakes again in her chair, insistent mouth of a babe at her breast and his dark eyes watching her from a foot away as he kneels by her side, one hand on the child's head, one hand on her knees. She cries, tears streaming down her cheeks as the infant suckles, and he wipes them from her face with a dry cloth.

–

She wakes with his lips cold on hers, his runestone in her hand, his fingers limp in her grasp, his chest still and empty.

–

She wakes.

–

She wakes.

–

She wakes.

\--

 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Hope Waking](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6161086) by [Moonraykir](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moonraykir/pseuds/Moonraykir)




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